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Stephen Trinkle is an Addiction Counselor at a residential, dual diagnosis rehab in Sellersville, Pennsylvania. With the help of Donald Levine, he began introducing Aiki principles into his work with rehab clients back in 1999. The program offers aikido training to adults with addictions and comorbid mental illnesses who express interest.

Let me take advantage of this thread to point to the fact that martial arts in general attract people who have problems, but they will not always tell the head instructor upon signing up. I think it is very important for a martial art instructor to learn to decipher symptoms - they can be very subttle - of spychological distress in a student, and also what the proper course of action - say in the case of an abused child - is, or the proper way to help the student with his or her issues.
I just wonder if this is a requirement for openning a martial art school in some countries.

In the case of an Abused Child, anyone who is working with children, paid or on a voluntary basis, legally has to be trained in child protection which does cover symptoms of abuse, so that would cover anyone who is teaching children Martal Arts. There is also a piece of goverment legislation stating that everyone who deals with children has to read a copy of a book Titled "What to do if youre worried a child is being abused". So basically yes that type of awareness is a legal requirement and if you are concerned then you are supposed to refair them onto social services. However that is just for England, but I would be suprised if other countries did not have similar laws.

Stephen Trinkle is an Addiction Counselor at a residential, dual diagnosis rehab in Sellersville, Pennsylvania. With the help of Donald Levine, he began introducing Aiki principles into his work with rehab clients back in 1999. The program offers aikido training to adults with addictions and comorbid mental illnesses who express interest.

Sorry all, that url is out of date. New website is www.aikidokenkyukaipennsylvania.org but I don't have any of my work-related info there. If anyone would like to e-mail me, I'd be very happy to talk about some of the things I've been playing around with.

Hi. I'm Kieran from ireland. I've just been reading your posts in relation to Aiki principles and their possible positive implications for work with adictions. I am a Social Worker working with homeless adolescents and I come across all sorts of addictions in my work and the one thing that remains a constant is the underlying anger hiding beneath the mask of addiction. I try to utilise my Aiki when working with addicts as it helps me to 'blend' with the issues involved and 'lead' those I work with to a better place. I would be very interested to read your thoughts on this matter.